Criminal Defense Lawyers

Federal RICO Charges

The 97% conviction rate isn’t because federal prosecutors are exceptionally skilled at winning trials. It’s because no RICO charge can be filed without prior approval from the Organized Crime and Gang Section in Washington. This is the reality of federal RICO prosecution that nobody explains until it’s too late. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was designed to dismantle the Mafia by making it possible to prosecute leaders who never got their hands dirty with actual crimes. But the statute has evolved into something far broader – a prosecutorial weapon used against businesses, political organizations, street gangs, and individuals with even remote connections to alleged criminal enterprises. The same law that put John Gotti away for life now targets people who never imagined they could face federal racketeering charges.

Between fiscal years 2018 and 2022, federal courts convicted 1,357 people under RICO. Only 2-3 out of every 100 defendants walked free. That conviction rate reflects a system designed not for fairness but for effectiveness. Understanding how RICO actually works – the enterprise requirement, the pattern element, the pre-trial asset seizure, the conspiracy liability – is essential for anyone caught in its machinery. Because once you’re charged, the deck is already stacked against you in ways that have nothing to do with your actual guilt or innocence.

The 97% Conviction Rate Is By Design

Here is the first thing you need to understand about federal RICO charges. The conviction rate isnt high because juries love prosecutors. Its high because the Department of Justice has created an approval process that filters out any case they think they might lose.

No RICO criminal indictment can be filed without prior approval from the Organized Crime and Gang Section. Prosecutors must submit a prosecution memorandum and draft indictment at least 15 working days before the anticipated filing date. OCGS reviews the evidence, evaluates the legal theory, and decides wheather the case should proceed. If they dont think it will result in conviction, they dont approve it.

Think about what this means for defendants. By the time you’re indicted, your case has already been reviewed by experts in Washington who specialize in RICO prosecutions. Theyve already decided you should be convicted. The charging decision itself reflects their confidence in the outcome. You’re not facing prosecutors who hope to win – you’re facing prosecutors who have already been told this case meets the standard for approval.

This creates an information asymmetry that shapes everything about RICO defense:

• The government knows exactly how strong their case is
• They know what evidence they have, what witnesses will testify, how the pattern of racketeering will be presented
• You know nothing until discovery begins – and by then, your assets may already be frozen

The approval requirement also means prosecutors are highly selective. They dont bring marginal RICO cases. They bring cases were the enterprise is clear, the pattern is documented, and the evidence is overwhelming. The 97% conviction rate isnt an accident. Its the result of a system designed to filter for prosecutorial success.

Pre-Trial Asset Seizure – How They Neutralize Your Defense

OK so here is were RICO becomes truly devastating. Before you’re convicted of anything – while you’re still legally presumed innocent – the government can freeze all your assets.

This isnt discretionary. RICO was written to include mandatory forfeiture provisions specificaly because prosecutors understood that defendants with resources could mount effective defenses. The logic is explicit: take away the resources, take away the defense. Your bank accounts get frozen. Your property has liens placed on it. Your business is in jeapordy. The goverment moves fast. And you cant afford to hire the attorneys who specialize in fighting these cases.

A proper RICO defense costs $50,000 to $150,000 minimum. Thats not an exaggeration – thats the reality of defending against complex federal charges that involve multiple defendants, extensive discovery, and trials that can last months. If someones quoting you significantly less, they either dont understand whats involved or they’re planning to plead you out quickly.

But how do you pay for that defense when the government has frozen your assets? This is the RICO trap:

• You’re presumed innocent
• You’re entitled to effective counsel
• But your money is gone before the trial starts

You can petition the court to release funds for legal fees, but thats a fight in itself – and prosecutors will argue that releasing assets defeats the purpose of the forfeiture provisions.

Weve seen cases were defendants with legitimate businesses, substantial savings, and no prior criminal history found themselves unable to afford private counsel becuase everything was frozen at indictment. They end up with public defenders – talented attorneys, but often overwhelmed with caseloads and lacking the resources to fight complex RICO prosecutions. The playing field isnt level. Its tilted by design.

You Don’t Have to Commit a Crime to Be Convicted

Here is the thing about RICO that catches most people completly off guard. You do not have to personally commit any of the predicate crimes to be convicted of RICO conspiracy under Section 1962(d).

The Supreme Court established this in Salinas v. United States in 1997. An individual who merely agrees to “facilitate” conduct by others that would constitute a RICO violation can be criminally liable – even if that individual never directly committed or agreed to commit any predicate act. The agreement to facilitate is the crime.

Think about how broad this is:

• You dont have to sell drugs
• You dont have to commit fraud
• You dont have to be involved in any of the 35 qualifying predicate offenses
• You just have to agree to help others who are

Providing a location. Making introductions. Handling money without asking questions. Any of these could be characterized as agreeing to facilitate an enterprise’s criminal activity.

Unlike regular federal conspiracy, RICO conspiracy dosent require an overt act. In standard conspiracy cases, prosecutors need to show someone took a concrete step toward completing the crime. RICO conspiracy has no such requirement. The agreement itself – your decision to participate in the enterprise’s affairs – is the crime. Nothing else needs to happen.

This creates extraordinary exposure for people on the periphery of organizations. You didnt think of yourself as a criminal. You didnt commit violent acts or steal money. But if prosecutors can show you agreed to participate in an enterprise that engaged in racketeering activity, you’re facing the same 20 years as people who actualy committed the predicate crimes.

The Enterprise That’s Everywhere and Nowhere

Here is were RICO law gets technicaly complex but practically devastating. Prosecutors must prove the existence of an “enterprise” – but the Supreme Court has made that element almost trivially easy to establish.

In Boyle v. United States (2009), the Court held that an association-in-fact enterprise only needs three things:

1. A purpose
2. Relationships among associates
3. Longevity sufficient to pursue that purpose

Thats it. No formal structure required. No hierarchy. No written rules or membership lists. Just people working together toward a common goal over some period of time.

This means almost any group can be characterized as an enterprise. A loose collection of individuals who know each other and engage in related criminal activity? Enterprise. A business with employees who commit crimes in the course of their employment? Enterprise. A street gang with no formal leadership structure? Still an enterprise under Boyle.

The enterprise element was supposed to distinguish RICO from ordinary conspiracy. The idea was that RICO would target ongoing criminal organizations, not one-time criminal agreements. But the Boyle decision lowered the bar so far that prosecutors can construct an “enterprise” from almost any set of relationships.

For defendants, this means challenging the enterprise element is extremly difficult. If prosecutors can show you associated with other people who committed crimes, and those crimes had some relationship to each other, and the association persisted over time – theyve met the enterprise requirement. The factual bar is low enough that almost any coordinated criminal activity qualifies.

The Commission Trial That Changed Everything

The Mafia Commission Trial of 1985-86 demonstrated exactly how devastating RICO could be. Prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani indicted 11 organized crime figures including the heads of New Yorks Five Families. Using RICO, he was able to prosecute mob bosses for crimes committed by their subordinates – murders they ordered but didnt personally commit, extortion schemes they approved but didnt execute.

Eight defendants were convicted. Most received 100-year sentences – the maximum possible under RICO at the time. The trial proved that RICO could accomplish what decades of traditional prosecution had failed to do: decapitate the leadership of organized crime by holding bosses responsible for the enterprises they directed.

John Gotti – the “Teflon Don” who had evaded conviction for years – finally fell to RICO charges in 1992. Prosecutors built a case showing a pattern of racketeering including murder, loan sharking, and illegal gambling. The testimony of his former underboss Sammy “the Bull” Gravano sealed the conviction. Gotti received life without parole and died in prison in 2002.

Operation Family Secrets in 2005 applied the same approach to the Chicago Outfit. Fourteen members and associates were indicted under RICO. Five were convicted at trial, six pleaded guilty. The prosecutions demonstrated that RICO wasnt just effective against the New York families – it could dismantle organized crime operations anywhere.

These cases established RICO as the governments weapon of choice against criminal organizations. But they also established precedents that prosecutors now apply far beyond traditional organized crime – to street gangs, businesses, political groups, and individuals who never imagined they could face racketeering charges.

The Pattern Requirement – Your Only Real Defense Opportunity

RICO requires prosecutors to prove a “pattern of racketeering activity” – at least two predicate acts within a ten-year period that are related to each other and to the enterprise. This pattern requirement is were many RICO defenses focus.

The Supreme Court has said the pattern must show “continuity plus relationship.” The predicate acts cant be random or isolated – they need to connect to each other and to the enterprises ongoing criminal activity. If prosecutors can only show disconnected criminal acts with no relationship to a continuing enterprise, the RICO charge should fail.

Here is were defense strategy matters. Breaking the pattern – showing that alleged predicate acts werent actualy related, or that they do not demonstrate the kind of continuity RICO requires – can cause the whole case to collapse. Without a pattern, theres no RICO. Prosecutors are left with whatever underlying charges they can prove, which often carry far less severe penalties.

The challenge is that courts have interpreted the pattern requirement broadly. Two acts of the same type, or two acts that serve the same purpose within the enterprise, are usualy enough to establish relationship. Continuity can be shown by the enterprises nature as an ongoing organization, even if the specific predicate acts occured close together in time.

Still, the pattern requirement is the element most susceptible to challenge. Defense attorneys scrutinize wheather the predicate acts actualy relate to each other, wheather they demonstrate the kind of ongoing criminal activity RICO targets, and wheather the government has stretched the statute beyond its intended scope. These arguments dont always succeed – that 97% conviction rate proves most fail – but they’re the best opportunity many defendants have.

The Civil RICO Trap Nobody Warns You About

RICO has both criminal and civil provisions. Private parties can sue under civil RICO and recover treble damages – three times their actual losses. This creates a parallel litigation track that can devastate defendants even before criminal charges resolve.

Here is the trap. If your attorney settles the civil RICO case without careful attention to how the settlement is structured, those settlement statements can become admissions in the criminal case. Unlike SEC settlements that explicitly include “no admission of wrongdoing” language, private RICO settlements often contain factual stipulations that prosecutors can introduce at trial.

Think about the sequence:

• You get hit with a civil RICO lawsuit
• The plaintiffs want money
• Your attorney negotiates a settlement to make the case go away
• The settlement includes stipulated facts about what happened – facts that seemed acceptable in a civil context were the goal was just ending the litigation

Then the criminal indictment comes. Prosecutors obtain the civil settlement. Those stipulated facts – that you agreed to in a civil case to make plaintiffs go away – become admissions that prove elements of the criminal charge. Your civil settlement strategy just destroyed your criminal defense.

This is why RICO defense requires attorneys who understand both the civil and criminal implications. Settling one case in isolation, without considering how that settlement affects potential criminal exposure, is a catastrophic mistake that competent RICO defense counsel would never allow.

Fighting RICO – The Marathon Nobody Prepares You For

Fighting RICO charges is a years-long commitment of time, money, energy, and emotional resources. The YSL case in Georgia – a state RICO prosecution – became the longest criminal trial in Georgia history. Jury selection alone took almost 10 months. The trial itself ran nearly two years.

Federal RICO cases often involve even more complexity:

• Multiple defendants
• Extensive discovery running to millions of pages
• Expert witnesses on enterprise structure, financial transactions, and criminal patterns
• Motions practice that can consume months before trial even begins

If your assets are frozen, maintaining this fight becomes almost impossible. How do you pay attorneys for two years of work when your bank accounts are seized? How do you support your family when your business has liens? How do you maintain hope when the conviction rate is 97% and everyone knows it?

This is the reality prosecutors count on. The system is designed to make fighting back so difficult, so expensive, so emotionally devastating that most defendants eventually plead guilty. Not becuase they’re guilty – but becuase they’re exhausted, broke, and terrified of the consequences if they go to trial and lose.

What Happens When You’re Actualy Charged

The moment federal RICO charges are filed, your life changes permanantly. Grand jury indictments in RICO cases typicaly name multiple defendants – sometimes dozens – and the charging documents read like novels detailing years of alleged criminal activity. You appear alongside people you may barely know, connected through an “enterprise” theory that treats every associated person as equaly responsible.

Bail becomes a fight. Prosecutors argue RICO defendants are flight risks and dangers to the comunity. They point to the mandatory forfeiture provisions and claim you have every incentive to flee rather than face decades in prison. Even if bail is granted, conditions are often restrictive – GPS monitoring, travel limitations, no contact with co-defendants or potential witnesses. Life becomes constrained before the first hearing ends.

Discovery in RICO cases is overwelming. Were talking about millions of pages of documents, thousands of recorded conversations, financial records spanning years. Your defense team needs to review everything, identify exculpatory evidence, and prepare to challenge the governments narrative. This takes time – often years – and money you may no longer have access to.

The Reality You Need to Accept

Federal RICO charges are designed to be overwhelming. The 97% conviction rate reflects a system were cases are vetted before filing, assets are seized before trial, and conspiracy liability attaches to anyone who merely agreed to facilitate criminal activity. The enterprise element is trivially easy to prove. The pattern requirement, while technically demanding, is interpreted broadly by courts sympathetic to prosecution.

Understanding this isnt about giving up – its about being realistic. If you’re facing RICO charges, you need representation that understands how these prosecutions work, how to challenge enterprise and pattern elements, how to fight asset seizures, and how to navigate the interaction between civil and criminal RICO exposure.

The Mafia Commission Trial, John Gotti, Operation Family Secrets – these cases proved RICO works. They also established precedents prosecutors now apply far beyond organized crime. The statute that was designed to take down mob bosses is now used against businesses, street gangs, political organizations, and ordinary people who found themselves connected to alleged criminal enterprises.

If you’re caught in RICO’s machinery, the time to mount a defense is now. Not after your assets are frozen. Not after civil settlements create criminal admissions. Not after years of pre-trial detention have broken your will to fight. Now – while options still exist and while the government’s case is still subject to challenge. The conviction rate is 97%. But 3% do walk free. Understanding how RICO works is the first step toward being in that 3%.